I've got a project where a farmer is splitting about 180 acres into several parcels. Per the owner's instructions one of the new parcel lines is supposed to follow the toe of a canal maintenance road. In the screenpic below the dashed blue line is the canal easement, the maintenance road runs along the inside of the southerly blue dashed line. I had my crew topo the toe of the road and the yellow line is the best fit line that I came up with to best follow the toe of the road without setting approximately 7 million pins out there. From L1 to L7 the line is a little over 1600' long and I thought it was a bit of an eyesore getting out of there with only 11 pins set, but I spoke with the farmer recently and he's concerned that in 1 spot there's a pin 6-8 feet from the toe of the road. Now I don't recall getting nearly that far away from the topo shots when I was calcing my line, but maybe I did (gonna check calc drawing here shortly). Or maybe the field crew missed a jog in the toe. But I mean this seems like a no-win situation. Either I set a ton of pins which looks ridiculous and probably confuses the hell out of everybody, or I get a phone call from the owner saying hey man, something isn't looking right...
Maybe it would have been possible to just call out the toe of the road in the deed description and not monument anything at all, but this is all ag land and these maintenance roads are basically just dirt berms that seem to get mauled by equipment or drift around over time.
Anyway, anyone have some sweet tips on how to make something like this happen without creating a pin farm?
(Also, why is it not possible to upload a .jpg, .png, etc which is probably the most common picture formats on earth...)
I think I might consider meeting the client on-site and setting the corners where the client agrees they should be located. Then, have the crew locate the points I set with the client present.
That's a really good idea, should probably have done that now that I think about it.
Looking at my calc drawing the furthest I'm showing my boundary from the topo linework is 1.8 feet so I'm thinking the crew had a bad fix or maybe missed a jog or something.
I am very confused. If I was asked to divide property at the toe of a road I would do this:
Walk along the toe, setting rebar and cap at agreed intervals, locating those monuments. Then my description would be something like, "Thence (direction) (distance) to a rebar and cap set at the southwest edge of the road, being the toe of a slope;"
If the intention is to follow the toe, have the description follow the toe. Why not have the farmer put marks where they want the monuments, then set them in that place? Why would you shoot the thing and not put rebar in at the same time?
As for what to do now, put in pins. Put 20 of them in, who cares? They will not survive, based on your description of the way these are maintained. The way it "looks" is kind of irrelevant.
Why would you shoot the thing and not put rebar in at the same time?
The owner wasn't sure how exactly he wanted the parcels configured at the time he just knew he wanted the toe to be the line for part of it.
Put 20 of them in, who cares?
I think most surveyors in this state would view that that as creating an unnecessary pin farm mess, myself included.
Can think of a number of cases of the decades that where basically the same situation as what you are tackling. One was about two years ago where the owner was dividing about 60 acres following the toe of a berm forming one side of a waterway that ran completely across the tract of farmland. He was keeping one side and selling the rest. We started off using the longest straight run possible with the owner staying at the last point set until the next point to set was selected by my surveyor. Sometimes that would be 300 feet and some times it would be more like 50 feet. The client then set steel T posts near each bar.
One from about 45 years ago involved such modern equipment as the four-post transit originally owned by Thomas Jefferson and a 100-foot steel tape. One hundred feet between bars being set, with the transit always setting over the last bar set. Literally traversed the entire tract in this fashion. Area was hand calculated.
I had a local attorney who wanted to split the old homestead. We started along the crest of the left side of a drainage, By the time he was finished I must have had 40 lath staked in the ground. His dad came out and blew up, "how much do you think brace posts will cost for this. We got the line down to 3 points.
Unless he specifically wants that toe monumented. With rebar or whatever. Just let the toe be the monument along the toe etc. I retraced a few boundaries that were written just that way. Now the pros are no driving a 100 rebar cons the toe can move but not much difference in that are along a creek at centerline or thread etc. plus natural monument is a great thing.
The toe of the berm is not a natural monument and the way that the easement description may or may not change when the course of the canal does. It also relates to the intent, if the toe of the berm on the date of the survey was the intent of the boundary, the course of the canal shifting as a natural monument does not relate to the toe of the berm as the canal apparently is not called for as a natural monument and a man made berm certainly is not a natural monument.
Is it not natural because this is man made? I didn’t look to see if it was a man made berm. I was just reading the toe from his writing. A toe can be man made or natural might call it the foot of something. Same for a hill it can be made by nature or by man. So if not a natural in this case. It could still be used as a physical monument correct. Just like a fence if it is worded correctly.
I don't mind pin farms as long as they land on the land described. All lines are required to by monumented in most areas we work in. Could you remove the northern PC from C1 and straighten out the angle points between L4, L5, L6 and L7 and still meet your clients needs? That's the only way i can see to lessen the # of monuments.
The toe of the berm is not a natural monument and the way that the easement description may or may not change when the course of the canal does.
You're right that it's not a natural monument since the berm is manmade, but highways are manmade and can be monuments...
And yeah the easement is basically wherever the canal is.
The irrigation companies that manage these canals drive down the maintenance roads with a trackhoe every once in a while and groom the embankments so yeah I think both the canal and the road move slightly over time due to that, erosion, etc.
I might simply call out the toe, setting a cap on it with a witness corner at the begin and end of the toe and describe it with B&D at the time of the survey. Treat it like a stream and if it's visible it's simple to follow in the field as a boundary. The caps along the way will leave the toe over time so it's just a snapshot of the toe the day it's capped, which can add ambiguity, where the call to the toe is clear. And I would include a reference in the description and the drawing that the calls along the toe are subservient to shifting of the toe location.
I encounter a LOT of boundaries tied to physical features of canals. The irrigation entities invariably treat them like an ambulatory boundary. In one case, they attempted to eject a farmer from the family home because it was 'within the easement'. They found out the hard way that canals are not riparian boundaries.
Without some very specific language, the toe (if called for) at the time of parcel creation is the line. If it moves, it is a disturbed monument. If the line as pinned is clearly identified as the line, it should prevent a lot of fights down the road..
@OleManRiver Unless he specifically wants that toe monumented. With rebar or whatever. Just let the toe be the monument along the toe etc.
I'm in Idaho like WA ID and like he says lines are required to be monumented. I'm not really a fan of referencing something that moves around anyway.
@WA-ID Surveyor Could you remove the northern PC from C1 and straighten out the angle points between L4, L5, L6 and L7 and still meet your clients needs? That’s the only way i can see to lessen the # of monuments.
I can live with the number of monuments that were set, but I don't think the farmer wants to get any further from the toe than what it currently is.
In fact he told me a fence has already been built along this line (pins are set but survey yet to be recorded) and I was like dude... tell me about that first so we could have maybe stuck some lath out there to help you with this. The C1 curve is 363' long and I'm assuming the fence is basically on the chord which means there's already a discrepancy...
@MightyMoe And I would include a reference in the description and the drawing that the calls along the toe are subservient to shifting of the toe location.
I think the farmer thinks the toe won't move.
@thebionicman The irrigation entities invariably treat them like an ambulatory boundary.
That's how I tended to view them as well. The language I've seen on the department of water resources website and elsewhere seems to be pretty open-ended as far as what the irrigation entities can claim. Sounds like courts have knocked them down a peg or two in the past though?
